Tiverton hosts its first-ever cross country meet

By GateHouse Media Staff

Tuesday

Sep 11, 2018 at 9:09 PM

TIVERTON — There was no marching band or grand-opening, ribbon-cutting ceremony. But the fact that Tiverton High School opened its new cross country course by hosting a boys meet against St. Raphael, Barrington and East Providence was cause for celebration.

Tiverton coach Brad Botvin was on the new course he designed all day Tuesday. He arrived at 7 a.m., used 14 cans of spray paint to mark the course, and with the exception of two hours off in the afternoon, basically lived on the course. His efforts were noticed.

“He did a great job. He did a great job setting it up,” Barrington coach Mike Katz said. “It’s really well laid out. It was impeccable.”

Tiverton lost to St. Raphael (21-34) and to Barrington (16-41) and defeated East Providence (16-42). And the Tigers did it at home, something they have never been able to do in the past. That’s a reason Botvin started the project last year. He contacted Keith Lawton, the Rhode Island Interscholastic League race director, and they talked.

“I talked to him on the phone and one day he came down with his wife and we walked the course,” Botvin said. “The course is 99 percent my design. His thing was the finish and the start lines were too close together. So we recalculated it and made them about 150 yards apart.

“When I mapped it out it was either way to long or short. So I broke down and bought a wheel and measured it officially.”

The course is 3.1 miles, an official 5K course. Botvin had to do some trimming on the path in the woods that separates the high school and middle school to make it wide enough.

“I’ve been in there with my loppers knocking down some branches and overgrown brush at least once a week,” Botvin said. “The rule is it has to have 8-feet clearance around and above. The path is about the width of a car – about 10 feet. They’ll be able to do some north-south racing in there.

“I got my weed whacker too and took down the grass real, real low on the path. I wanted to define it so they know where the path is and where to go.”

St. Raphael junior Nazavell Medeiros won the race and didn’t have any problem navigating the course.

“It wasn’t that bad. There were people out there to tell me where to go and the arrows were there too,” Medeiros said. “It’s actually a really good course. I expected it to be a lot harder because of the sun and stuff.

“Other than that it wasn’t bad. You’re in the woods just a short period of time and the rest you’re on the fields.”

Sophomore Will Gerlach (19:41) was the first Tiverton runner to cross the finish line and the eighth overall in just the second race of his career.

“He’s intense,” Botvin said. “He puts a switch on and doesn’t want anybody to beat him. He’s totally focused. He just needs to learn how to race. He has the potential.”

When Botvin took the teams on a preliminary jog around the course he did not hear anyone state any problems. Gerlach was back in the pack and heard otherwise.

“When we did the walk-through I heard a bunch of the other teams complaining about it, but that’s okay,” Gerlach said. “It ended up serving to my advantage because I knew how the course went.

“There’s a lot of concrete (in one area) and if you’re wearing spikes that are metal it’s not very good for them. It’s hard to run on.”

When told of that comment Katz said, “When I was in high school you ran half the time on pavement. So there.”

One spectator told Botvin, "You’ve got a ton of land here it looks really good." And Katz labeled it a spectator’s course.

“It’s a very good course for spectators. It’s very spectator friendly,” Katz said. “People can go all over the place without having to exert themselves too much.”

Being able to watch the runners was something Botvin took into consideration when designing the course.

“It’s great for viewing for the parents,” Botvin said. “If they stand up near the football field they’ll see the kids for about 60 percent of the race. The only time they won’t be able to see them is when they’re on the path in the woods and when they’re over at the middle school.”

Tiverton’s other top runners finishing after Gerlach were: Will Brigham (15th) 21:07), Josh Dore (16th, 21:15), Aidan Banal (18th, 21:20) and Nate Nevellie (24th). While the Tigers lost to both opponents they’ll be hosting two other meets this season. That enables more people to view the course.

“It’s impressive just to see the amount of people who turned out here today – fans, parents, the media,” Botvin said. “I hope more people show up. It looks like it’s going well.”

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